Brilliance
by KateToast
Summary: Brilliance is the perfect way to describe it, she decides. LQ.


**A/N:** Total LQ fluff, because I do not write them enough and really need to. Apologies for the over-use of the word 'brilliant'/'brilliance'.

XXX

"I must say, you are quite possibly one of the most _gifted _young scientists I've had the chance to work with. Absolutely _brilliant_," the older man mumbles to himself, peering back into the microscope, obviously distracted by the find.

She's struck by his description of her: _brilliant_.

All the way home she mulls over the word.

XXX

Brilliance is the perfect way to describe it, she decides.

She's learned many things in her short 27 years. She _is _a genius, isn't she? Of _course_ she's learned millions and billions and trillions of facts and formulas in her lifetime, made numerous important discoveries since completing graduate school, and even before. She's brilliant, everyone says. And for a long, long time, she'd thought that was all that mattered: academic brilliance, scientific brilliance. She'd always known only those types of brilliance.

Then she'd met a boy, as almost all girls eventually do, and she'd learned a new type of brilliance: complete, total, all-consuming, outrageously mean, self-centered brilliance. Idiotic brilliance brought to new heights, all in one unfairly-good-looking jackass.

He'd teased her. He'd made fun of her. He'd outright offended her. He'd tortured her and her friends. He'd loathed her. He'd ignored her. He'd called her a _spaz_, but that had been the last straw.

She remembers him unknowingly paying for that one, chasing a chicken around a basketball court, getting pelted by tennis balls, stumbling around campus in a dress and high heels. She'd gotten her revenge, and he'd stormed away. He was _angry_, and she was _glad_.

She remembers what she said to him later, when he'd finally forgiven her enough to actually be in the same room as her, when she'd been passing by on her way to meet up with Mark: "I was just getting you back for all the mean things you've done to me since I got here."

She remembers expecting a poor attempt at an insult in response, but instead, surprisingly, he just looked at her for a long time, and finally he'd shrugged, resigned. "Alright." He'd accepted the punishment and gone back to his sports magazine, and it was the first time she idly wondered if there was more to this brilliantly dumb boy than meets the eye.

She remembers that after that conversation - if you could call it that - he wasn't so mean to her.

However, his brilliance at being, in general, a stupid boy (_damn_ his good looks!) had continued.

That's why she'd been taken by such surprise when he had sat down on the bench beside her because he'd seen her crying. Wasn't he just another brilliantly idiotic boy who knew nothing of true feelings, nothing of heartache?

She barely remembers the kind words he'd said, about Mark being an idiot for breaking up with her, how she was pretty and weird and fun.

What she does remember is the _way_ his voice sounded, soft and gentle and honest; she'd never heard him talk to _anyone_ like that before, especially a girl, especially _her_. She remembers him placing her dorky glasses back on her face, the way the air had changed as they'd stared at each other, some sort of unspoken recognition passing between them as they had leaned forward at the same time and kissed.

With that kiss her world was opened to a new kind of brilliance: the kind of brilliance that comes when you kiss and it clicks and you realize you can't remember how you lived before this moment, before this brilliantly idiotic boy's lips were on yours.

Ever since then, over ten years ago, she's been learning to find brilliance not just in science, but in everything about _him_: the brilliance of his smile when she comes home from work, the brilliance of his laugh as she lightly teases him, the brilliance of his smirk just before he swoops in to kiss her, the brilliance of his determination as he follows in his father's large Hollywood footsteps, the brilliance of his fiery eyes as they argue for the millionth time over what color to paint the guest bedroom, the brilliance of his voice late at night when she's lying in his arms and he's talking about their future.

She can't believe he was once a brilliant train wreck of a boy, only looking out for number one, because now he is her brilliant husband, whom she could not live without.

XXX

"You're brilliant," she says as she watches him cut up vegetables.

He doesn't stop, doesn't even look up. "Babe, do you think you're talking to a mirror, or have we been spending too much time together?" Chop chop chop. "Last I checked you were the brilliant mind in this house."

"I think you're brilliant in your own way."

He finally glances up, leans over the island, pretends to take her temperature, goes back to slicing and dicing. "Nope, no fever."

She isn't deterred. "Can you just accept that I am saying that in your own special way you are brilliant, tell me you love me, then continue to chop the broccoli?" she asks. She never said he was reformed from his brilliant idiocies.

He stops again, stares at her – _brilliantly_, she thinks. "I love you. Now let me finish getting our dinner ready, unless you've suddenly learned to cook."

"Hey! I made that pasta… thing… last month."

"Doesn't count."

He's smirking.

She loves it.

XXX


End file.
